The next morning we got up at 6am (although I was woken earlier by that damn cockerel - they're only supposed to crow at dawn), had a spot of breakfast and took a taxi to the Viazul bus station.
Viazul is quite clearly aimed at foreigners and thankfully is far less bureaucratic than Astro. I think they try to be as posh as possible (somewhat unnecessarily at times), doing things like checking in your luggage and loading it onto the bus for you.
It was at the luggage check-in that we met our new friend whose name was something like Joey. His accent was Canadian, but he's been living in London for the last 40 years (he's retired). It was lovely to have someone to chat to in English, particularly someone non-threatening like him. He's married to a Spanish lady so speaks good Spanish, and it was interesting comparing experiences with him.
Viazul buses are incredibly comfortable, with lots of legroom and big, soft, comfy seats. The journey to Trinidad was five hours long, stopping only at a cafeteria place for a break and in Cienfuegas to pick up/drop off passengers.
The cafe place must get all its business from the Viazul buses. It had stalls and a gift shop set up to nab all us touristy types, and they were rather enterprisingly charging for the use of the toilet roll at the door, presumably to combat us foreigners simply ignoring the tipping bowl. We did have our loo roll with us so we could have bypassed this scheme but we were nice and co-operated.
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